The Citroen C-Crosser is a 7 seat, diesel only, 40mpg, fairly massive 4×4 that in Exclusive trim costs £27k. It will appeal to folk who live in the country with children who occasionally bring their mates home. Families who can afford a new car, but struggle to justify spending over £30k on a Discovery. Pleasant humans who want something that can deal with the pitted, muddy track to the stable without bottoming out. It will make these people very happy. As a sensible, rugged, reasonably affordable family car with a couple of spare seats in the back, it’s good. Very good.
It’s good at doing stuff it doesn’t need to bother with too. Like going round corners. We spent a whole weekend driving it round the Cotswolds, and on more than one occasion deliberately drove straight back where we’d come from just for the hell of it. Obviously, the C-Crosser is no Saxo VTS – there’ll certainly be no inside wheel cocking, lift-off oversteer or hairpin handbraking. But, considering it weighs 1750kg and takes 11 secs to get to 62mph, its fleet footed bend taking ability is a gentle shock, especially given that the ride is still perfectly composed and comfortable.
Perhaps a Mazda CX-7 feels tighter, and perhaps a BMW X1 is quicker to change direction – but the C-Crosser has a more fluid, better-resolved ability to manage both bumps and corners simultaneously, shrinking around you and being easy to place on the road. The similarly priced Mazda and BMW don’t have 7 seats either. It’s not supernaturally good, just much better than it has any right to be. You can enjoy it.
Some of the fun can be attributed to the new ‘DCS’ double clutch gearbox, a £1200 option. Snicking it across to manual and using the massive wheel mounted paddles adds to the involving nature of the chassis. And, if we’re being picky, this also avoids the auto mode’s occasional tendency to languish in an optimistically high gear, below where the peak 200lb ft of torque steps in at 2,000rpm. The only other downside to the DCS is an environmental one – figures of 38.7mpg and 192g/km of CO2 aren’t as pleasant as the manual’s 40.4mpg and 185g. No biggy though… the smooth auto changes help the big Citroen’s refinement.
The C-Crosser’s other bonus feature is a usefully robust 4wd system. A dial lets you choose between FWD, occasional 4WD if the fronts lose grip, or locked 4WD. Admittedly, we didn’t blat up any mountains to test it to the limits, but over rough, slippy, pitted dirt tracks where the back wheels were at least being called into action, the C-Crosser felt perfectly happy acting agriculturally. Seeing as it’s been co-developed with Mitsubishi (who rebadge it and sell it as an Outlander), this impression should at least have some objective backing – they’re pretty handy at the 4×4 business.
It’s only when you stop moving and look around the interior that negativity starts to creep in. The heating dials feel flimsy, with materials that are bettered by the new C3, which costs £10k less. The £1690 optional sat nav has the iffy ergonomics you’d find in an aftermarket Halfords job – and like too many factory fit sat navs, you can’t change the CD track or radio station if you’re using the navigation. The rear seats are only very temporary too. But that’s about it. The C-Crosser is a surprising car… not just because of how well it achieves what it set out to, but because it offers much more than you’d expect.
